Wonder Woman #2: A Fire in the Sky Review
Medium: Comic
Release date: 3/1/1987
Review date: 9/25/2024
Score: 8/10
I think when I was younger I would have balked at the deviation from Greek myth with “Wonder Woman’s” narrative, but now I find it pretty fun - the emphasis on Aphrodite now being Hephaestus's ex-wife was an enjoyable detail, and while I’m not completely sold on Ares just being 100% pure evil, the comic setting up Demios, Photos, and Harmonia to be his wicked minion children is an enjoyable use of the mythology.
The comic has great art again this issue, and if you find that I stop mentioning that in future reviews it's more because I just don’t want to sound like a broken record rather than it not being true anymore. This issue we meet Colonel Stephen Trevor, a Vietnam War veteran who gets ordered by his Ares influenced boss General Kohler to unknowingly fly over Themyscira and drop a bomb on the Amazons, but luckily Diana saves the day (and Trevor) with the help of her new magic golden lasso that she gets from the gods, departing for the world of man with Hermes and the unconscious Trevor at the issue's end. It's fun stuff, and interesting to see that they have the character of Trevor, who I usually see adaptations place in the WW2 era as an Allied fighter pilot, be set in the more contemporary Vietnam War, which I think probably gives the now clear antiwar message of the series a more serious bite than if had been set further in the past. Trevor is a fine enough character so far, a decorated and beloved war hero who appears to hate said war, which feels like a good foil for Ares and his goons. What exactly Ares' powers are and can do seem a little all over the place and undefined narratively, but so far that hasn’t been too much of a problem.